Delaware LLC fees (2026)

Every mandatory and optional fee Delaware charges an LLC, verified against the official fee schedule — not a blog's memory of it. Statutes and source links are at the bottom of each section.

Delaware LLCs file no annual report; they pay a flat annual tax by June 1 (starting the year after formation). HB 400 (signed May 21, 2026) raised this tax from $300 to $400 for tax year 2026 (first payable June 1, 2027). $200 penalty + 1.5%/month interest if late.

The full fee schedule

The filings and certificates an LLC actually ends up paying for, at the official rate.

Online vs. mail vs. counter

• Delaware has no true online LLC formation — only document submission: The Division's Document Filing and Certificate Request Service is explicitly "for submission only of business entity filings or certificate/document requests" and "does not provide for direct online filing or retrieval of business entity documents and certificates." You complete the same PDF Certificate of Formation either way; uploading it only replaces the envelope. The state fee is identical whether the document arrives by upload or by mail — Delaware publishes no online-versus-paper price difference for LLC filings. (source)
• No portal convenience surcharge is published: Neither the Document Filing and Certificate Request Service nor the LLC/LP/GP tax payment application publishes a percentage or flat convenience fee for paying by card. The tax portal accepts Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Discover, and the Division warns to click submit only once because repeat clicks can duplicate the charge. (source)
• ACH debit is mandatory above $5,000 on the tax portal: Electronic payment by ACH debit is "required for all transactions over $5,000.00" when paying the LLC/LP/GP annual tax, so a batch payment covering many entities cannot go on a credit card. The Division publishes bank identification number 1225092400 for ACH debit filters. (source)
• Cards are authorized at submission but charged only on processing: "The fees required for the request will not be charged to the credit card/ACH account upon submission. When the order is processed, the charges will be applied. An invoice will be sent with the completed request." The upload form also does not calculate fees, so an underpaid or miscalculated submission is a rejection risk that mail filers face equally. (source)
• The upload service is closed nights, weekends and state holidays: Submission is available Monday through Thursday 7:45am–11:59pm ET and Friday 7:45am–10:30pm ET, and is unavailable on weekends, state holidays and unexpected closures. The separate tax payment application runs daily 8:00am–11:45pm ET. A June 1 tax deadline falling after a weekend outage leaves no online path to cure. (source)
• Expedite tiers are gated by time of day, not just price: One-hour service requires receipt by 9:00pm ET, two-hour by 7:00pm ET, same-day before 2:00pm ET, and next-day by 7:00pm ET. Paying for same-day after 2:00pm buys nothing — the cutoff, not the fee, controls the turnaround. (source)
• Everything comes back by postal mail regardless of how it went in: "All orders are returned by routine U.S. Postal Service unless an account number is provided for return by Federal Express or UPS," and "No requests can be returned via fax or email." An electronically submitted formation still produces a paper return trip unless you supply a courier account number at submission, which is the hidden delay in Delaware's "online" filing path. (source)
• Mailed checks must be drawn on a U.S. bank in U.S. funds: For mail orders the Division requires that "the check must be drawn on a U.S. Bank in U.S. funds" — a real constraint for the foreign founders who make up much of Delaware's LLC base, and the practical reason most non-U.S. owners pay through a registered agent instead. (source)
• Good standing certificates cost the same online or by mail: A short-form certificate is $50 and a long-form is $175 whether ordered through the online certificate request service or by mail; no online surcharge is published. Note that 6 Del. C. § 18-1105(a)(10) authorizes the Secretary of State to charge up to $175 for any certificate issued via online services, so the statutory headroom to price online certificates higher exists even though it is not currently used. (source)

Miss the deadline: what it actually costs

Delaware LLCs file no annual report, so the only recurring obligation is the flat $400 annual tax due June 1 for the preceding calendar year. Miss it and 6 Del. C. § 18-1107(e) adds a flat $200 penalty, and § 18-1107(c) runs interest at 1.5% per month on the tax and penalty combined until paid. The penalty is per delinquent year, not once. The non-monetary consequences bite harder than the money: under § 18-1107(h) the LLC ceases to be in good standing the moment the tax is late; under § 18-1107(k) the Secretary of State will refuse to accept any certificate for filing — amendment, merger, conversion — and will not issue a certificate of good standing until the arrears are cleared; under § 18-1107(l) the LLC cannot maintain any action in a Delaware court; and under § 18-1107(j) the Attorney General may petition the Court of Chancery for an injunction barring the LLC from transacting any business once the tax has been in arrears three months. If the tax stays unpaid for three years, § 18-1108(a) automatically cancels the certificate of formation on the third anniversary of the due date.

Recent fee changes

• 2026-08-01 — Secretary of State fee changes under House Bill 400 (85 Del. Laws c. 273, § 22) take effect and the Division reissues its fee schedule as "Revised August 1, 2026." For LLCs: preclearance rises from $250 to $350; the cap on a written record-search report rises from $100 to $200; a new $100 fee for accepting service of process is added at 6 Del. C. § 18-1105(a)(13); and the statutory ceilings on expedited service are raised across the board — 30-minute from $7,500 to $10,000, one-hour from $1,000 to $2,500, two-hour from $500 to $1,500, same-day from $300 to $500, and 24-hour from $150 to $300. The core LLC filing fees were not touched: the certificate of formation stays at $70 statutory ($110 published) and amendments stay at $180 statutory ($220 published). Because the published expedite prices ($1,000 one-hour, $500 two-hour) now sit well below the new statutory ceilings, the Division can raise them administratively without further legislation. (source)
• 2026-01-01 — House Bill 400 (85 Del. Laws c. 273, § 23), approved May 21, 2026, raises the LLC annual tax at 6 Del. C. § 18-1107(b) from $300 to $400, and the registered-series tax from $75 to $100 per series, with an effective date of January 1, 2026 set by § 45 of the Act. Because § 18-1107(c) makes the tax payable "on the first day of June following the close of the calendar year," the $400 rate first applies to calendar year 2026 and is first payable June 1, 2027; the payment collected on June 1, 2026 was the $300 tax for calendar year 2025. (source)

What trips people up

• The advertised $110 formation fee is not one fee. 6 Del. C. § 18-1105(a)(3) sets the state filing fee at $70; the Division's own schedule footnotes that the domestic-LLC column "equals filing fee plus municipality fee," a $40 municipal add-on layered on top. The same $40 spread shows up on every domestic LLC filing — the $180 statutory amendment fee is published as $220 — and the schedule warns that municipality fees apply per LLC where registered agents sit in different municipalities. (source)
• Delaware LLCs never file an annual report — unlike Delaware corporations they owe only the flat $400 tax — and that tax is explicitly never prorated: "Annual taxes are assessed if the entity is active in the records of the Division of Corporations anytime during January 1st through December 31st of the current tax year." Form an LLC on December 30 and the full $400 for that calendar year is owed the following June 1, which makes a late-December formation an expensive way to save two days. (source)
• An unpaid annual tax freezes the entire file, not just the ledger. Under 6 Del. C. § 18-1107(k) the Secretary of State will not accept any certificate for filing — amendment, merger, conversion — and will not issue a certificate of good standing while the tax is outstanding, and § 18-1107(l) bars the LLC from maintaining any suit in a Delaware court until it is restored. A forgotten $400 payment can therefore stall a financing, an acquisition or a litigation deadline, which is why the penalty understates the real exposure. (source)

Sources

• Official Delaware fee schedule
• {'cite': '6 Del. C. § 18-1105', 'title': 'Fees', 'summary': 'Sets every fee the Secretary of State collects for LLC filings: $70 certificate of formation (a)(3); $180 for amendment, restated certificate, cancellation, merger, conversion, correction and revival (a)(3); $75 name reservation (a)(1); $50 per certified copy plus $2.00/page (a)(4); $10 first page + $2.00 per additional page for plain copies (a)(5); $200 foreign registration (a)(6); $50 for an amendment captioned as changing only the registered office or agent (a)(11); $50 for a certificate of good standing and $175 for a certificate reciting all filings (a)(10); $350 preclearance (a)(8); $60 returned-check fee (a)(12). Subsection (b) caps expedited-service surcharges.', 'sourceUrl': 'https://delcode.delaware.gov/title6/c018/sc11/index.html'}
• {'cite': '6 Del. C. § 18-1107', 'title': 'Taxation of limited liability companies and registered series', 'summary': '(b) imposes the flat $400 annual tax on every domestic and registered foreign LLC, plus $100 per registered series. (c) makes it due June 1 following the close of the calendar year and runs interest at 1.5% per month. (e) adds a $200 penalty for failure to pay by June 1. (h) strips good standing immediately on nonpayment. (k) bars the Secretary of State from accepting any further filing or issuing a good standing certificate while the tax is unpaid. (l) bars the LLC from maintaining suit in Delaware courts.', 'sourceUrl': 'https://delcode.delaware.gov/title6/c018/sc11/index.html'}
• {'cite': '6 Del. C. § 18-1108', 'title': 'Cancellation of certificate of formation or certificate of registered series for failure to pay taxes', 'summary': '(a) The certificate of formation is cancelled if the annual tax goes unpaid for 3 years from its due date, effective on the third anniversary of that due date. (c) The Secretary of State must publish the list of cancelled entities online by October 31 of each year and advertise the address in a Delaware newspaper of general circulation.', 'sourceUrl': 'https://delcode.delaware.gov/title6/c018/sc11/index.html'}
• {'cite': '6 Del. C. § 18-1109', 'title': 'Revival of domestic limited liability company', 'summary': 'A cancelled LLC may be revived by filing a certificate of revival and paying the § 18-1105(a)(3) filing fee plus the annual tax and all penalties and interest due at the time of cancellation. Revival is retroactive and validates acts taken while cancelled.', 'sourceUrl': 'https://delcode.delaware.gov/title6/c018/sc11/index.html'}

Figures verified against official Delaware sources. Fees change — the official schedule linked above controls. This page is general information, not legal or tax advice; FilingDesk is not a law firm.